When I first heard about the titans, I was very excited about the concept. After a few weeks of playing around with them, I am nowhere near as excited as I used to be. The problem is they are not a strong addition for multiplayer.
The reason is the game is becoming a giant game of "don't feed the titan". With Permanent xp and levels, there is every incentive for a player to risk his titan to kill a ton of frigates just to level it up. As a result players are afraid to bring in frigates until LATE LATE LATE LATE LATE game for fear of leveling the other players titan too high. Also, players are rushing the pirate base for experience and the guy who gets the level 3 titan from killing the pirate ships has a massive advantage.
Please, don't try to argue the "well if he goes to the pirate base, hes vulnerable elsewhere". I thought that too, but sins is slow paced enough where you can't deal a decisive blow while he is leveling his titan. Also, you may argue that suiciding your titan because of the cost and build time is foolish but if you take out enough ships to gain a level or 2, it was well worth it, because even if your opponent starts to push on you, you just bring your titan back out into play even more powerful than before and continue leveling it.
The only real and reasonable solution is to make it so xp and levels DO NOT carry over upon death.
Yeah put the titan in a defensive position with AM resupply like idk the TEC starbase or Advent AM ball and then it becomes very dam hard to kill the thing even if it isn't the TEC loyalists.
Here's a thought. Keep titan research where it is on the research tree (levels 1-4) so we can play with our new toys early. I like playing with titans relatively early
HOWEVER, make them weaker but add more techs in the same titan research line (levels 6 - 10). These could increase not only their base stats but also how fast they level and how much XP they keep when they die (as suggested by someone else). Maybe even make their special abilities as techs (their hull/armor, damage, and anti-matter slots can be available without research).
I would say that a level 1 titan should equal roughly 4(?) level 1 capital ships given the resource and opportunity costs. However, if you can research more titan tech, with tier 10 you should have a death machine.
Here are some ideas.....
1. Have the cost, build time, and such increase with each death so that people don't get stupidly reckless with there titans and just run them everywhere to get xp.
2. Instead of having a level reduction why not just wipe there xp bar since its one big bar and not different ones for each level you'd have to trek through all the xp bars again every time you die instead of starting out at 500/1000 when you level.
3. Make the level increase the cost, build time so for examples a beginning titan cost 9500 credits, where as a level 5 titan may cost around 20 to 30k to rebuild.
4. Make them like cap ships so that they reset every time they die but allow them to function the same as cap ships where as they get the xp buffs for each race and can buy they're first 3/4 levels
just ideas...
Or take away titan levels in general and make the titan have its own tree in the research tab where it can learn not only its own weapon upgrades but abilities, faster build times, lower resources, and so on and so forth. Would keep people from rushing to titans cause it would be a late game expensive thing and it would keep people from being afraid to charge one for fear of feeding it.
@ barebalo and Stein
Good ideas
Anything that can get rid of the horror of LRF spam that has existed since as long as I've been playing, I'm for it. However, that being said, I'd prefer if we had a situation where every ship was useful, and we had these things that I like to call balanced fleets. I'm a big fan.
I have two idea's i think would work.
1. Have titans cost 8 cap ship points. Increase cap ship points to 24. This means you still have your 16 cap ships and a titan or 24 caps ships. Simple to do the game can handle it as we have palyed a 4 v 4 lan game with i think it was 48 cap ships per player and the game ran fine so the engine can handle it.
2. Limit them to travel only without your own gravity wells - im not too fond of this but i think it would work and stop titan spamming because the way the game is now you can just to build a titan as fast as you can (22/23 mins?) then just send it at the enemy and keep doing that letting it die over and over and over until its level is higher
Keep titans as are - let them keep their XP bo to build them required the following research
Level 8 Defense - Titan Hull
Level 8 Weapons - Titan Weapon Project
Level 8 Civilian - Titan Foundry (titan foundry should not be under tactical because the game mode win the game without building any tatical structures means no titans)
I dont think that the titans should not retain their XP regardless of what if any changes are made between now and the release.
I think the idea of 24 cap chips vs 16 caps and 1 titan would change up the game play nicely, especially if your titan loses a level - which of these two would you all prefer - 24 level 10 caps or/vs 16 level 10 caps with a level 10 titan
1 facepalm
2 hell no that would make titan pointless to build
Honest answer? I personally like your first idea, but it needs some work. Maybe a little XP loss on death, or a build time or resource cos increase for each successive rebuild, something that makes it so that while losing your Titan doesn't equal instant loss, it also gives the other player/team a quantifiable advantage.
Could always go with the WarCraft 3 approach to heroes. Every time the hero levels up, it costs more resources (I believe 10-20% more) and increases the time to bring it back. So if you have a level 5 titan it costs 50% more of the basic cost and take 50% longer to build. Along with the "taking time to activate the weapon systems on a Titan and bring them online". I think this would be a fair break for the "lost my titan, lost the game" and "my titan died, it lost all it's experience". It would give the person who killed the titan a little bit to ravage a few of your systems and build them up. while you can rebuild your titan, at the same level, for more resources than you originally spent on it, and take a bit of time for weapon systems to come online. Could always look at it as the extra resources you spent on your titan are for the materials to upgrade it's weapon systems? (And the original way your titan built them was from wreckage around the titan for killing stuff.)
Make a Titan lose half it's exp... Small blow for weaker titans, huge blow for lv 10 titans
Remember the movie Ground Hog Day?
You'll feel your watching it once that Titan you just destroyed returns......
How about when you rebuild a Titan, it does not start with any of its previous XP. But, if you leave it in the docking bay, it gets "charged up" with XP until it was at its previous level? This gives you the Titan back and lets you compete against other Titans, but makes your Titan inactive for a time if you want it to be as powerful as before. This gives you a penalty for losing your Titan where you cannot use it if you want it to be strong, but losing it is not the end of the game for you.
My thoughts exactly.
First off, thanks for the reply Sareth. Very true. I hadn't really realized it until then, but the new ships definitely are letting me expand and defend for a significantly lower fleet supply than Trinity. This sounds like it'd be an issue, but with the extra money for trade ports/starbases, I feel both richer and stronger than ever.On topic with titans: a couple things.1) Concerning single player, I definitely agree that a player (or AI) should still be penalized if they lose a titan. Killing a titan, then jumping to the next well after the battle is over in time to see that SAME TITAN respawned and rejoining the fight? There's no joy there. 2) Increasing resources each additional build would do nothing to address the titan returning at full strength. All it'd do is, in a round about way, force a player to automatically lose if his titan was destroyed too much. It's the same as limiting the lives/rebuilds of the titan... too static, and introduces more problems than it solves.3) I feel the idea of having upgrades taking time to come online is the best approach, perhaps with titans taking a couple minutes longer to rebuild. This keeps a titan from becoming a beast instantly after respawn, and doesn't punish too harshly for a careless death. It SHOULD allow a low level titan to quickly get back into the fight at top strength, while punishing a high level titan for his blunder. You'd just have to make sure it would only impair the titan, not basically give the other team a free "I win" card by crippling it's use. 4) Completely unrelated: if these forums are to be believed, why the deuce DOESN'T flak work effectively on bombers, anyway? Flak has, historically, always been a tool for bomber defense, not air superiority, and frankly, fighters seem pretty lackluster at air superiority anyway.
How does increasing the resources and rebuild time based upon level do nothing to address the issue? The issue is fielding a high-level titan nearly immediately after it dies. If you increase it's build time and resource cost per level the titan has, it's alot worse of a blow to a high-level titan, and not so much for a low-level one. The point is to make a titan dying mean something, and making it cost more and take longer would "punish" a player for letting it die without making it insta-lose for that player.
This. Increasing cost makes it punishing to lose resource wise, and increasing time gives the other player an opportunity to shift the strategic situation in his favor.
Fair question. As is, a player without a titan is at a severe, if not fatal, disadvantage compared to a player with one. The issue with the system is not that titans are too -easy- to replace, as I think that's necessary for gameplay. As an aside, I think people may be exaggerating how cheap they they are to replace. I doubt anyone wastes that much resources because they can't find anything better to spend it on.The issue with the titans is that, once lost, they can fairly quickly replaced at full strength. The fact they are quickly replaced isn't a problem, due to the fact that without the titan, the player is effectively crippled. Titans are just that damn important for offense/defense. The fact that rebuilt titans are 100% as lethal right out the gate is the issue to me. As such, this aspect is what needs addressed.An exp penalty, time to bring system back online, or something along those lines would help correct that. Increasing the resources for the titan does not, and while still causing a player penalty, I feel it would really just be a mechanic that would allow for more territory to change hands while the titan is being rebuilt. Additionally, by making titans increasingly difficult to replace, it would act to remove a person from a game who keeps losing his titan through rather artificial, static means, making the game end faster than it would otherwise.This explain my reasoning a bit better?( Edited for clarity. )tl:dr I think weakening the titan somehow, but leaving it accessible, is a better solution to the issue than making titans harder to reacquire.
Oh, I also agreed with that, since I said they could also do the "make it take time for the weapon systems to come back online" instead of maybe the rebuild timer, but I feel the cost increase is justified.
I don't agree with a total exp lost since it prevents any sort of rebound if you actually do lose the titan. Some exp lost I can find justifiable. Maybe drop 1-3 levels but not all the way down back to level 1.
Cost increase is required though.
AND CORVETTES ARE NEW LRMS
They even have the same counter which is flak but this time the corvettes can actually run from you and who cares if you lose a few. You spam them like bombers. Sure you can have a large amount of flak but it gets to a point where having 50 of them makes no difference against like a 300 corvette swarm. Titans and their AOEs seems to be the only answer to this huge huge masses.
I think there is an easier way to keep the Titans under control.
Why not just make it financially difficult to sacrifice your titan. Add 5% of cost to recreate a titan times the level.
so if you you lose a level 1 its
10,000. 500, 300
level 5
15000, 750, 450
etc.
Level 10
20000, 1000, 600
But make it in such a way that Tech pay slightly more in Gold percentage - since they have the better economy -+ 3%
Advent - percent increased for Crystal + 3%
Vasari - percetn increased for Metal - +3%
That was losing a Titan doesn't end you but your economy takes a hit and your ability to field more units is delayed for a while.
BTW is it my or is the Advent Loyalist Titan scary - I have not used it yet, but Unity Mass can be devastating to a fleet and its ability to push away strikecraft is also pretty mean
Okay, so we need to work out if for example a level 7 TEC loyalist titan can take a level 10 TEC rebel titan in combat and if not win but hold its ground, because if it can't what the point of building another titan? You've essentially lost the game its just going to take longer for you to lose it.
Its the same as I said before
any ideas on this one gents?
also
If this was a situation, where a titans weapon systems were coming online, but the titan was free to move. I can't see why it would make the game end faster especially if the titans were still able to hold their own after they fully activated?
I would really like to know how set in stone this issue is, or is it just part of the beta process.
If this is a developers vision of the game, i will focus my beta thoughts elsewhere. With titans keeping their level, the game is even more focused on that one ship.
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